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Schools could tie teachers’ pay incentives to their performance as part of Gov. John Kasich’s
yet-to-be-unveiled funding formula, the Republican governor said yesterday.

Without filling in the details, Kasich said his school-funding plan would “empower,” but not
require, local districts to “design programs” in which teachers could earn more money based on how
well they do their jobs. Kasich also laid out how he will present his new formula — in a private
meeting with school superintendents and then in a public town-hall meeting during the week before
he delivers his 2014-15 budget to the legislature on Feb. 4.

“I’m a big believer that you have to pay people more who do excellent jobs,” Kasich said at
Hamilton Elementary School, after a ceremonial signing of legislation that creates an A-through-F
rating system for schools.

“I would rather have it come from the bottom up than from the top down. Because if it can come
from the bottom up, then we can get agreement within the districts with the school board and the
teachers and everybody else.

“But it’s absolutely something I think makes a lot of sense.”

Kasich cited Cleveland Democratic Mayor Frank Jackson’s plan for Cleveland schools, which Kasich
endorsed and helped push through the legislature last summer, as an example.

In House Bill 525, which granted legislative authority for the Cleveland plan, teachers and
principals are to be paid on a “differentiated” salary schedule based more on performance than
experience.

A teacher’s salary could not be lowered unless the reduction is part of a collective-bargaining
agreement; a principal’s salary could not be reduced during the terms of his or her contract unless
mutually agreed to by the principal and the school board.

But teachers and principals would be paid based on their level of licensure, whether they’re
deemed to be “highly qualified,” how they rate on their performance evaluations and whether they
have received specialized training.

Additional pay increases could result from working in schools where it’s deemed more difficult
to teach. Teachers and principals ultimately rated as “accomplished” would get larger pay increases
than those rated “proficient.”

Kasich didn’t say how his plan would empower school districts to do something like this, nor did
he divulge which, if any, of the traits from the Cleveland plan his school-funding formula
copied.

Kasich said he spoke yesterday with Sebastian Thrun, a Google vice president, Stanford
researcher and founder of a private, online education institution. Kasich said he would “work
aggressively with” Thrun on items such as reducing remediation rates for students entering
college.